If you’re going to colonise a planet, you’d better be willing to fight for it.
Within Anphobos, there grows a new race. The first generation of humans never to set foot on Earth. They are pale skinned, large eyed and worship no god but science. They possess technological skills and processes Earth has refused to acknowledge. Until now…
“We are Martian. Your religion isn’t ours. Our god is Mars. Our religion is science. Anything we do in the service of Mars, is good. Make no mistake, Earth girl, we are both right and good.”
Fresh off Earth, Jodi Scarfield doesn’t really care for Mars or its politics. Still, accusations of treason will get a girl’s attention...
This whole move was her father’s plan of course. David
Scarfield had been offered the opportunity to manufacture and grow crops in the
Anphobos greenhouses. What botanist wouldn’t leap at that kind of chance? That had been his question. There had been no
appropriate answer. Botanists had a history of stupid behaviour. David
Scarfield was continuing a fine tradition. That he screwed over his family in
the meantime was, apparently, not important.
Jodi kept scraping the little rough edges off her
nails. It wasn’t chewing really, so much as trimming.
Martian kids were a pack of self-important
psylocrats. The ones she’d met on Earth barely spoke to other kids at school. They
treated Earth technology as though it was backward and annoying, and they made
constant comparisons between Earth and Mars, as though Earth could never hope
to compete. Jodi felt her hackles rise just at the thought. Admittedly —and
considering her latest exploits— she wasn’t the globe’s greatest patriot, but
she wasn’t stupid either.
Everyone knew Martian and Earthen technology were
the same. Anphobos was an Earthen colony, for crying out loud. Mars couldn’t do
anything without Earth monitoring and approving of it. Even Martian inhabitants
were screened by Earth’s health and quarantine officers. The whole red planet
colony would barely exist if it weren’t for Earth. So who were these
ego-inflated, technogeeks kidding when they poured on their attitudes? It was ridiculous, really. Or it would have
been, if she weren’t about to join a school—nay a whole frying colony—full of
them.
The shuttle whooshed and slid just the way it was
supposed to. Mars, with its red dust, mountains, craters and unearthly land
forms, grew closer and closer by the second. Then the colony came into view. Vast
by comparison with what she’d imagined, Anphobos was shaped like a giant wheel.
Concentric circles joined by spokes, glowed white and silver against a
blood-red planet. Nestled at the curve of Cydonia’s throat, her new home stood
like a jewel on the surface of the planet.
As if the face-shaped mountain wasn’t enough of a
threatening protector for the colony of Anphobos, this jewel also belonged to
Mars, an angry and warlike god. If she let her imagination run too far, Jodi
could almost feel Mars resenting their arrival. This god who lent his name was
hoarding and hungry. Panic fluttered fast in her chest. She was going to be
trapped here, just like all the other people inside that synthetic dome. Once
you were in, you couldn’t get out. Mars wouldn’t allow it. There wouldn’t be
any nice picnicking day trips across to the craters. Mars never needed day
trippers. Mars had always been one for sacrifices.
Jodi breathed deeply and closed her eyes. Air-conditioned
cool ran through her sinuses. What was she doing? No need to borrow trouble.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, trouble came
for her. Trouble with a capital T.
I'm pleased to welcome Rebecca Bloomer to my blog today. How did you begin your writing career?
When I was a teenager I
attended an all girls catholic school. In the evenings, after homework, I’d
write bodice-ripping romances. My
friends would read these romances in installments, vying over who got to read
what pages first. One afternoon, a girl
I barely knew chased after me and asked “Bec, can I be first with your pages
tomorrow?” I shrugged. “I’ve got a lot of math homework tonight, so
I probably won’t have time to write.”
The girl grinned at me. “I’ll do
your math homework if I get your pages first.”
Right then, I realised I wanted to be a writer.
Tell us about your current release.
My current book, UnEarthed is
YA sci-fi. It sprang out of some
research I was involved in when I was working at the University of Queensland
(UQ). It’s a vast step away from my first
YA books but I love it. I love that even
with a science-fiction setting and plot, I’ve got female characters who are
feisty and strong. I love them for their
brains, their attitudes and their immense hearts. In fact, even though UnEarthed was supposed
to be a stand-alone novel, I’ve just finished the first draft of its sequel…UnEarthly!
Has someone helped or mentored you in
your writing career?
Yes, I was lucky enough to
work at UQ with a guy named John Cokley.
Before becoming an academic in the School
of Journalism , John was an editor for
The Courier Mail (newspaper in Queensland
When in the day/night do you write? How
long per day?
I write at least a thousand
words a day, just because I need routine.
At the moment I write at night because I’m homeschooling my daughter
while we here in France
As to how long…well Ernest
Hemingway believed that you should always stop while you’re on a roll. That way you can start writing the next day
feeling enthusiastic and ready. I’m practicing his method at the moment. I stop mid-moment, just so I’m still
hankering the next day.
Where do you research your books?
Everywhere! I eavesdrop on conversations for accents and
cadence. I cut snippets out of
magazines. I read journal articles and
watch documentaries. I collect
anecdotes, listen to music and daydream continuously. I think in this way, most writers are
blackbirds. We steal all the sparkly,
shiny things that take our fancy and take them home with us in hope they’ll
work some kind of magic for us.
What are you passionate about these
days?
Difference! I’m so sick of cultures trying to convince
our kids that they need to conform in order to succeed. I’m tired of looking at generic images of
beauty. I’m absolutely and completely
fed up, with our ridiculous consumption of gossip and image over fact and
substance.
I wage my war in my
books. None of my characters are
‘normal’ but they’re all extraordinary.
All of them are more than they first appear, and they’re all people I
would admire or fall in love with, were they real.
You’ll see that the tagline
on my blog is ‘Giving normal a bad name’.
I’m on a mission to encourage kids to veer from the norm and aim toward
amazing!
Rebecca Bloomer has led a hectic and sometimes harried
life. This probably began when she became a teenaged mother.
Baby on hip, Rebecca returned to school in order to finish her
studies. Upon completing grade twelve she immediately took up study in
her favoured field of education. In 1996 she finished her Bachelor of
Education with a double major in English and Biology and immediately began work
in a small town called Lowood (yes, the graffiti-d sign still says ‘SLOWOOD’)
With four years of teaching under her belt, Rebecca decided
to expand her horizons. So she packed up her house, her kids and her
partner, put them on a plane and flew the family to Turkey Turkey
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